


humility

by hikaie



Category: Far Cry 5
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Confessions, Drabble, Gen, Religious Guilt, the deputy isn't a good person!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-25
Updated: 2019-07-25
Packaged: 2020-07-22 18:51:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19971004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hikaie/pseuds/hikaie
Summary: She used to cry; not quite in the beginning with the shock of it all, but somewhere in the middle her days became riddled with a fog of teary eyes and stuttered breathing. Now she’s on the Other Side of that, though still she feels her present is a middle, and the future an unknowable after. She hopes. She hopes. Selfishly, she hopes.





	humility

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little drabble because the idea came out of nowhere. (Also I'm still working on my multichap I'm just horrible about posting. :'))

Although quiet and dark in the room (it is always dark, here in the earth, where they must conserve power and candles and light), she can hear that the cadence of his breathing hasn’t evened out. There are deep grooves in the plaster of the wall, ones that she’s scratched in, and she counts their shadows, their oblong shapes with eyes adjusted to dimness. Rook has opened her mouth twice, thrice already, and closes it each time, a wet sound that she muffles by pulling the blanket up to her face. She used to cry; not quite in the beginning with the shock of it all, but somewhere in the middle her days became riddled with a fog of teary eyes and stuttered breathing. Now she’s on the Other Side of that, though still she feels her present is a middle, and the future an unknowable after. She hopes. She hopes. _Selfishly_ , she hopes.

“I used to be scared of driving.” She’s speaking to the grooves in the wall, all 147 of them, not him, not Joseph. The confined walls of the bunker echo his breathing back to her, and the sound of his body moving on the other bed. (There are enough rooms to be apart, to be separate, but the cold had set in 53 grooves ago and they had conceded the point. Compromised, even.) “When I first started… I was so overwhelmed, by all the controls, and everything I had to pay attention to… I would lock up.” She swallows, and it sounds like a gulp. “Then when I finally got the hang of it, I had this paranoia… that something, or someone, would run in front of me.”

There comes a shuffling noise, of sheets and blankets being pushed aside, and then the squealing of much-abused springs. He’s sat up. Rook can picture him in her mind: he sleeps with his hair down, and he takes off his glasses. She wonders, between their absence and the darkness, if he can see the way she’s trembling.

“I used to brake for squirrels… sometimes rabbits.” She bites hard on her lip. Heat wells up in her eyes, unstoppable, so she squeezes them shut. “It’s funny, honestly, I did some of my best driving trying to get here. I got around… all of that… I got _so_ close, only to…” Rook takes a deep breath and steadies herself. “Anyway. I…”

“Do you have a point, Deputy?” Joseph sounds very weary, and unlike himself. His voice shocks her, makes her turn onto her back. In her periphery she can see the shape of him in the dark, too human to be him. She feels his shadow should have horns, a tail, be great and hulking and flickering with animalistic breathing. Instead he is a man, a lithe one at that, and she feels courage take hold in her.

“I’ve killed 17 project members while driving- well. _With_ the vehicle I was driving.” No matter the bravery it took to say this, her voice is still small. Her eyes still feel hot and strained.

He is silent a long while. His hand raises, and pushes his hair from his face. “Okay.”

“Okay?” Now she sits up, pushing up with her hands behind her. The blanket falls to her waist and the chill of the stale air hits her skin. “ _Okay_?”

She can just make out the way he tilts his head. “Okay.” He repeats. “You are forgiven.”

This is only the second time she has heard these words. It is invariably why she chose to say this, to tell him. To confess. Something in her chest feels shattered: there had been shards from the acts themselves, and instead of making her whole again, these confessions feel like they take a sledgehammer to the remains. Why did she go through with it? The first time had been in the Middle, begging Joseph, pleading with him. (The words had taken a long time for him to say, and when he had they were said deliberately, with feigned calmness.) But Rook supposes, if they started with him forgiving the murder of his siblings, anything after would be easier. She was right, and she was wrong. Just like with everything else.

“Just… like that?”

“Just like that.” He looks at her- she can feel the weight of his eyes. “As long as you feel truly remorseful.”

“I do.” Rook answers abruptly. He nods, and after a moment he turns and slips back under the cover of warm blankets. She sinks onto her back again, and angles her head back toward the wall. She starts over her count of the grooves, and when she reaches approximately the middle she quietly says, “Goodnight, Joseph.”

His reply comes drowsy and human-like across the gap between their beds. “Goodnight, Deputy.”


End file.
